Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction (abbreviated "SF") focused on theories that include but are not limited to gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, and reproduction. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.[1]

Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions (to science) are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.

History

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Feminist science fiction (SF) distinguishes between female SF authors and feminist SF authors.[3] Both female and feminist SF authors are historically significant to the feminist SF subgenre, as female writers have increased women's visibility and perspectives in SF literary traditions, while the feminist writers have foregrounded political themes and tropes in their works.[3] Because distinctions between female and feminist can be blurry, whether a work is considered feminist can be debatable, but there are generally agreed-upon canonical texts, which help define the subgenre.

Women writers, who could be considered the first feminist SF authors, were those involved in the utopian literature movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These texts, emerging during the first wave feminist movement, often addressed issues of sexism through imagining different worlds that challenged gender expectations. In 1892, poet and abolitionist Frances Harper published her novel Iola Leroy at the age of 67. It is known as one of the first novels published by an African American woman. Set during the antebellum South, the utopian fiction follows the life of a mixed race woman with mostly white ancestry and records the hopes of many African Americans for social equality during Reconstruction.[6] The novel addresses not only issues of gender, but of race as well. Two American Populist publishers, A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe, published a book, which explores issues of gender norms and structural inequality titled NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages (1900). This recently rediscovered novel displays familiar feminist SF conventions, which include a heroine narrator who masquerades as a man, the exploration of sexist mores, and the description of a future hollow earth society where women are equal.

During the 1920s and 1930s, much of the popular pulp science fiction magazines exaggerated views of masculinity and featured sexist portrayals of women.[7] These views would be subtly satirized by Stella Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm (1932)[8] and much later by Margaret Atwood in The Blind Assassin (2000). As early as 1920, however, women writers of this time, such as Clare Winger Harris (The Runaway World, 1926) and Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Claimed, 1920), published science fiction stories written from female perspectives and occasionally dealt with gender and sexuality based topics.

The Post-WWII and Cold War eras were a pivotal and often overlooked period in feminist SF history.[3] During this time, female authors utilized the SF genre to assess critically the rapidly changing social, cultural, and technological landscape.[3] Women SF authors during the post-WWII and Cold War time periods directly engage in the exploration of the impacts of science and technology on women and their families, which was a focal point in the public consciousness during the 1950s and 1960s. These female SF authors, often published in SF magazines such as The Avalonian, Astounding, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy, which were open to new stories and authors that pushed the boundaries of form and content.[3]

At the beginning of the Cold War, economic restructuring, technological advancements, new domestic technologies (washing machines, electric appliances),[9]increased economic mobility of an emerging middle class,[10] and an emphasis on consumptive practices,[11] carved out a new technological domestic sphere where women were circumscribed to a new job description - the professional housewife.[12][13] Published feminist SF stories were told from the perspectives of women (characters and authors) who often identified within traditional roles of housewives or homemakers, a subversive act in many ways given the traditionally male-centered nature of the SF genre and society during that time.[3]

In Galactic Suburbia, author Lisa Yaszek recovers many women SF authors of the post-WWII era such as Judith Merril, author of "That Only a Mother" (1948), "Daughters of Earth" (1952), "Project Nursemaid" (1955), "The Lady Was a Tramp" (1957); Alice Eleanor Jones "Life, Incorporated" (1955), "The Happy Clown" (1955), "Recruiting Officer" (1955); and Shirley Jackson "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" (1955) and "The Omen" (1958).[3] These authors often blurred the boundaries of feminist SF fiction and feminist speculative fiction, but their work laid substantive foundations for second wave feminist SF authors to directly engage with the feminist project. "Simply put, women turned to SF in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s because it provided them with growing audiences for fiction that was both socially engaged and aesthetically innovative." [14]

By the 1960s, science fiction was combining sensationalism with political and technological critiques of society. With the advent of second wave feminism, women’s roles were questioned in this "subversive, mind expanding genre."[15] Three notable texts of this period are Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) and Joanna Russ' The Female Man (1970). Each highlights the socially constructed aspects of gender roles by creating worlds with genderless societies.[16] Two of these authors were pioneers in feminist criticism of science fiction during the 1960s and 70s through essays collected in The Language of the Night (Le Guin, 1979) and How To Suppress Women's Writing (Russ, 1983). Men also contributed literature to feminist science fiction. Samuel R. Delaney's short story, "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" (1968), which won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1970, follows the life of a gay man that includes themes involving sadomasochism, gender, significance of language, and when high and low society encounter one another .[17] Octavia Butler's Kindred (1979) tells the story of an African American woman living in the United States in 1979 who uncontrollably time travels to the antebellum South. The novel poses complicated questions about the nature of sexuality, gender, and race when the present faces the past.[4]

More recent science fiction authors illuminate injustices that are still prevalent. At a time of LA Riots, Japanese- American writer Cynthia Kadohata's work In the Heart of the Valley of Love (1992) was published. Her story, set in the year 2052, examines tensions between two groups as defined as those who "have" and the "have-nots" through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old girl who is of Asian and African decent.[23]Nalo Hopkinson's Falling in Love With Hominids (2015) is a collection of her short stories that range from historical fantasies involving colonialism in the Caribbean, ethnic diversity in the land of Faerie, age manipulation, among others.[24]

In the early 1990s, a new award opportunity for feminist SF authors was created. The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. Science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler initiated this subsequent discussion at WisCon in February 1991. The authors publishing in feminist SF after 1991 were now eligible for an award named after one of the genre's beloved authors. Karen Joy Fowler herself is considered a feminist SF writer for her short stories, such as "What I Didn't See", for which she received the Nebula Award in 2004. This story is a homage Alice Sheldon, and describes an gorilla hunting expedition in Africa. Pat Murphy won a number of awards for her feminist SF novels as well. For her second novel The Falling Woman (1986), a tale of personal conflict and visionary experiences set during an archeological field study for which she won the Nebula Award in 1988. She won another Nebula Award in the same year for her novella, "Rachel in Love". Her short story collection, "Points of Departure" (1990) won the Philip K. Dick Award, and her 1990 novella "Bones" won the World Fantasy Award in 1991.[25]

Eileen Gunn's science fiction short story "Coming to Terms" received the Nebula Award in the United States (2004) and the Sense of Gender Award in Japan (2007), and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award, Philip K. Dick Award and World Fantasy Award, and short-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Her most popular anthology of short stories is Questionable Practices, which includes stories "Up the Fire Road" and "Chop Wood, Carry Water". She also edited "The WisCon Chronicles 2: Provocative Essays on Feminism, Race, Revolution, and the Future" with L. Timmel Duchamp.[27]Duchamp has been known in the feminist SF community for her first novel Alanya to Alanya (2005), the first of a series of five titled "The Marq’ssan Cycle". Alanya to Alanya is set on a near-future earth controlled by a male-dominated ruling class patterned loosely after the corporate world of today. Duchamp has also published a number of short stories, and is an editor for Aqueduct Press. Lisa Goldstein's novel Dark Rooms (2007) is one of her better known works, and another one of her novels, The Uncertain Places, won the Mythopoeic Award for Best Adult Novel in 2012.

Recurrent themes

Works of feminist science fiction are often similar in the goals they work towards as well as the subjects and plotlines they focus on in order to achieve those goals. Feminist science fiction is science fiction that carries across feminist ideals and the promotion of societal values such as gender equality, and the elimination of patriarchal oppression. Feminist science fiction works often present tropes that are recurrent across science fiction with an emphasis on gender relations and gender roles. Many elements of science fiction, such as cyborgs, implants, and utopias and dystopias are given context in a gendered environment, providing a real contrast with present-day gender relations while remaining a work of science fiction.

Utopian and dystopian societies

Representations of utopian and dystopian societies in feminist science fiction place an increased emphasis on gender roles while countering the anti-utopian philosophies of the 20th century. Male philosophers such as John Rawls, Isaiah Berlin, and Michael Oakeshott often criticize the idea of utopia, theorizing that it would be impossible to establish a utopia without violence and hegemony. Many male written works of science fiction as well as threads of philosophical utopian thought dismiss utopias as something unattainable, whereas in feminist science fiction, utopian society is often presented as something achievable and something desirable.[28]

Anti-utopian philosophies and feminist science fiction come to odds in the possibility of achieving utopia. In "Rehabilitating Utopia: Feminist Science Fiction and Finding the Ideal", an article published in Contemporary Justice Review, philosophers against the dream of utopia argue that "First is the expectation that utopia justifies violence, second is the expectation that utopia collapses individual desires into one communal norm, and third is the expectation that utopia mandates a robotic focus on problem-solving." In feminist science fiction, utopias are often realized through communal want for an ideal society. One such novel is summarized in the aforementioned article, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland, in which "Gilman perfectly captures the utopian impulse that all problems are solvable. She establishes a society where every consideration about a question aims for the rational answer".[28] Gilman’s utopia is presented as something attainable and achievable, without conflict, while not enabling violence or extinguishing individualism.

In the Parable trilogy by feminist science fiction novelist Octavia Butler, anti-utopian philosophies are criticized via a dystopian setting. In the first novel, Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamina, one of the many who live in a dystopian, ungoverned society, seeks to start her own utopian religion entitled ‘Earthseed’ after the destruction of her home and family. Olamina’s created utopian society does not justify the use of violence to achieve utopia, yet is involved in the violence that is caused by the dystopian society. Butler posits that utopian society can never be achieved as an entity that is entirely separate from the outside world, one of the more common beliefs about conditions that are necessary to achieve utopia. Olamina’s, and Butler’s, utopia is envisioned as a community with a shared vision that is not forced on all within it.[28]

One common trend in feminist science fiction utopias is the existence of utopian worlds as single-gendered – most commonly female. In literary works such as Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, female utopias are portrayed as free of conflict, and intentionally free of men. The single gendered utopias of female science fiction are free of the conflicts that feminism aims to eliminate, such as patriarchal oppression and the gender inequality inherent in patriarchal society. In a statement about these single gendered utopias, author Joanna Russ theorized that male-only societies were not written because in patriarchal society, male oppression is not as pressing as an issue as female oppression.[29]

Utopia as an ideal to strive for is not a concept wholly limited to feminist science fiction, however many non-feminist science fiction works oft dismiss utopia as an unachievable goal, and as such, believe that pursuits for utopia should be considered dangerous and barren. Anti-utopian theory focuses on the ‘how’ in the transition from present to society to a utopian future. In feminist science fiction, the achievement of a utopian future depends on the ability to recognize the need for improvement and the perseverance to overcome the obstacles present in creating a utopian society.[28]

Representation of women

Perhaps the most obvious attraction of science fiction to women writers – feminist or not – is the possibilities it offers for the creation of a female hero. The demands of realism in the contemporary or historical novel set limits which do not bind the universes available to science fiction. Although the history of science fiction reveals few heroic, realistic, or even original images of women, the genre had a potential recognized by the women writers drawn to it in the 1960s and 1970s. Before this time, the appeal for women writers was not that great. The impact of feminism on the science fiction field can be observed not only in science fiction texts themselves, but also on the development of feminist approaches to science fiction criticism and history, as well as conversations and debates in the science fiction community. One of the main debates is about the representation of women in science fiction.

In her article "Redefining Women’s Power through Feminist Science Fiction", Maria DeRose suggests that, "One of the great early socialists said that the status of women in a society is a pretty reliable index of the degree of civilization of that society. If this is true, then the very low status of women in science fiction should make us ponder about whether science fiction is civilized at all".[30] The women's movement has made most of us conscious of the fact that Science Fiction has totally ignored women. This "lack of appreciation" is the main reason that women are rebelling and actively fighting to be noticed in the field anyway.[31]

Veronica Wolf relates to this aspect of feminist science fiction in the article "Feminist Criticism and Science Fiction for Children". As she discusses the scarcity of women in the field, she states, "During the first period, that of the nineteenth century, apparently only two women wrote Science Fiction, Mary Shelley and Rhonda Broughton," and continues, "In the early twentieth century, a few women were successful Science Fiction writers". But, "The times changed. Repression gave way to questioning and outright rebellion, and in the Science Fiction of the 1960s stylistic innovations and new concerns emerged ‘Many of their stories, instead of dealing with the traditional hardware of science fiction, concentrated on the effects that different societies or perceptions would have on individual characters’ ".[32] Andre Norton, a semi-well known analyst of Science fiction argues along these lines as well. As Norton explored one or more novels she came across, she realized that the creation of characters and how they are shown is a clear connection to the real world situation. From here, she goes in depth of characters in these feminist novels and relates them to the real world. She concludes here article along these lines. She wanted to get the idea out that feminists have a way to get their voice out there. Now, all their works are famous/ popular enough for their ideas to be let out. Virginia Wolf can attest to this fact. She introduced the idea that women were not represented well in the field till the early 1900s and added to the fact by stating , " Women are not represented well in Science Fiction".[33]

Individual characters, as we come to know, have their own perception and observation of their surroundings. Characters in novels such as The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree and Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale are fully aware of the situation at hand and their role in society. This idea is a continuation of the argument presented by Andre Norton. Wolf argues the same point in her analysis of Le Guin’s writing, who has many contributions to the works of feminist Science Fiction. Wolf argues, "What matters to Le Guin is not what people look like or how they behave but whether or not they have choice and whether or not they receive respect for who they are and what they do rather than on the basis of sex. Feminism is for her not a matter of how many women (or characters in Science Fiction) are housewives but a part of our hope for survival, which she believes lies in the search for balance and integration".[34] This stirs up many questions about equality (a debate which has been going on for many years) but nobody seems to have an answer. In this continual search for equality, many characters find themselves asking the same question, "Is Gender Necessary" which is, coincidentally, one of Le Guin’s novels and also another problem arising from gender biases. Robin Roberts, an American Literary Historian, addresses the link of these characters and what that means for our society today. Roberts believes that man and women would like to be equal, but are not equal. They should be fighting the same battle when in fact they are fighting each other. She also debates that gender equality has been a problem in every reach of feminism, not just in Feminist Science Fiction. Wolf also tackles this problem, "As she explains in ‘Is Gender Necessary?,’ writing The Left Hand of Darkness convinced her that ‘if men and women were completely and genuinely equal in their social roles, equal legally and economically, equal in freedom, in responsibility, and in self-esteem, . . . our central problem would not be the one it is now: the problem of exploitation—exploitation of the woman, of the weak, of the earth’ (p. 159)".[35] Science fiction criticism has come a long way from its defensive desire to create a canon. All of these authors demonstrate that science fiction criticism tackles the same questions as other literary criticism: race, gender, and the politics of Feminism itself. Wolf believes that evaluating primarily American texts, written over the past one hundred and twenty years, these critics locate science fiction's merits in its speculative possibilities. At the same time, however, all note that the texts they analyze reflect the issues and concerns of the historical period in which the literature was written. DeRose introduces her article with, in effect, the same argument. She says, "the power of women in Science Fiction has greatly depreciated in the past few years".[36]

Gender identity

FeministScience Fiction offers authors the opportunity to imagine worlds and futures in which women are not bound by the standards, rules, and roles that exist in reality. Rather, the genre creates a space in which the gender binary might be troubled and different sexualities may be explored.[1]

As Anna Gilarek explains, issues of gender have been a part of feminist discourse throughout the feminist movement, and the work of authors such as Joanna Russ and Marge Piercy explore and expose gender based oppression. Gilarek outlines two approaches to social critique via Feminist SF: the use of fantastical elements such as “invented worlds, planets, moons, and lands,” used to call attention to the ills of society by exaggerating them, or a more straightforward approach, “relying on realist techniques to convey the message about the deficiencies of our world and its social organization, in particular the continued inequality of women.” [2] There are many examples of redefined gender roles and gender identity found in Feminist SF, ranging from the inversion of gendered oppression to the amplification of gender stereotypes and tropes. In the short story “The Matter of Seggri,” by Ursula Le Guin, traditional gender roles are completely swapped. Men are relegated to roles of athletes and prostitutes while women control the means of production and have exclusive access to education. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, gendered oppression is exaggerated in a dystopian society in which women’s rights are stripped away and fertile women are relegated to the roles of handmaids who will bear children to further the human race.

Over the decades, SF and feminist SF authors have taken different approaches to criticizing gender and gendered society. Helen Merrick outlines the transition from what Joanna Russ describes as the “Battle of the Sexes” tradition to a more egalitarian or androgynous approach. Also known as the “Dominant Woman” stories, the “Battle of the Sexes” stories often present matriarchal societies in which women have overcome their patriarchal oppressors and have achieved dominance. These stories are representative of an anxiety that perceives women’s power as a threat to masculinity and the heterosexual norm. As Merrick explains, “And whilst they may at least hint at the vision of a more equal gendered social order, this possibility is undermined by figuring female desire for greater equality in terms of a (stereotypical) masculine drive for power and domination.” Examples of these types of stories, written in the 1920s and 30’s through the 50’s, include Francis Steven’s “Friend Island” and Margaret Rupert’s “Via the Hewitt Ray”.

In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist SF authors shifted from the “Battle of the Sexes” writing more egalitarian stories and stories that sought to make the feminine more visible. Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness portrayed an androgynous society in which a world without gender could be imagined. In James Tiptree Jr.’s short story “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”, women are able to be seen in their full humanity due to the absence of men in a post-apocalyptic society.[5] Joanna Russ’s works, including “When it Changed” and The Female Man are other examples of exploring femininity and a “deconstruction of the acceptable, liberal ‘whole’ woman towards a multiple, shifting postmodernist sense of female ‘selfhood’.” [6]

However, feminists have also created science fiction that directly engages with feminism beyond the creation of female action heroes. Television and film have offered opportunities for expressing new ideas about social structures and the ways feminists influence science.[44] Feminist science fiction provides a means to challenge the norms of society and suggest new standards for how societies view gender.[45] The genre also deals with male/female categories, showing how female roles can differ from feminine roles. Hence feminism influences the film industry by creating new ways of exploring and looking at masculinity/femininity and male/female roles.[46] A contemporary example of feminist science fiction television can be found in Orphan Black, which deals with issues of reproductive justice, science, gender, and sexuality.

Feminist science fiction is sometimes taught at the university level to explore the role of social constructs in understanding gender.[50]

Critical works

Femspec

Femspec is a feminist academic journal specializing in speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, mythic explorations in poetry and post-modern fiction, and horror. There is a conscious multicultural focus of the journal, both in content and in the diverse makeup of its editorial group. The first issue came out in 1999[51] under the editorial direction of founder Batya Weinbaum, who is still the Editor-in-Chief. Femspec is still publishing as of the winter of 2014 and has brought over 500 authors, critics and artists into print. Having lost their academic home in May 2003, they increasingly cross genres and print write-ups of all books and media received, as well as of events that feature creative works that imaginatively challenge gender such as intentional communities, performance events, and film festivals. The journal has, to date (2013–14) published fourteen volumes, two issues per volume. Special issues come out regularly, such as the 12.2 one on motherhood in sf, and the most recent volume on Great Age. The journal offers virtual internships, apprenticeships, and associate positions, as well as weekly rap-and-write classes by SKYPE taught by editorial board members. Aqueduct Press, in 2013, published Feminist Voices, with the winners of the Best of Femspec's first ten years of creative writing. The journal has maintained a regular presence at WisCon, Pop Culture, and NWSA meetings, and is open to new blog writers, board members, writers, critics and participants. A Femspec Books and Production line has brought out four books, and accepts full-length manuscripts, creative and non-fiction. The staff offers writing retreats in Feminina Sube, a space on Isla Mujeres, MX, in January, beginning in 2015. The journal's works are available on EBSCO and other data bases, and Femspec is starting to sell individual articles on smashwords. Analysis of Femspec's data-usage hits and most commonly-cited articles is available on its Facebook page, as well as calls for papers and materials. They currently seek materials on mental illness and abortion in speculative works and welcome interviews with writers, as these are frequently read, and especially aim to increase coverage of international writers of speculative works.

↑ 5.05.1Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. SeeThe Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy by Brian Aldiss (1995), page 78.

↑The original creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist explicitly stated that he wanted a female hero worthy of being a role model for young women. "Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman." Marston, in The American Scholar (1943).